


Elimination Game

by downjune



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Consent Issues, Game Winner, M/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-19 22:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17610107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: The kid put his hand in the middle of Claude’s chest, his palm damp with sweat, and shoved.Claude didn’t move a muscle. “You're gonna have to put me on my knees.”





	Elimination Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



Elimination Game

The kid’s hair was still crushed flat from his helmet as he walked into the winner’s room, but once he’d shut the door behind him, he shoved his fingers back through it so his curls stood up in a wild, gold halo. 

Claude didn’t get up from where he sat at the edge of the bed. A fucking dick-trick in an elimination game. Four goals to send the Pens to the second round, and here he was, staring at the kid’s hair. 

He looked at the kid’s face instead, at his shit-eating grin, then his cocksure posture. Yeah, he’d earned that swagger, but it was still pretty fucking ballsy to ask the captain to the winner's room after putting an end to his season. This kid was, what, twenty-two? Twenty-three?

There was the anger, Claude found with relief, slipping back in through his numbness after the loss. He'd dragged his team to the playoffs, and for what? A first-round exit at the hands of a skinny, smart-mouthed punk barely out of the minors. 

But who else would Guentzel ask for? They’d been in each other’s faces all night. Give Claude a minute and he’d probably be insulted if the kid had picked anyone else. 

“So what do I get for a dick-trick in an elimination game?” Guentzel asked. “Is there a special prize?” The kid’s voice was rough and boyish—low in his throat like he’d been yelling all night. He had. 

Claude licked his teeth and snapped them together, baring them in an unfriendly smile. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

The kid laughed, eyes darting quickly to the side. Claude wondered who had psyched him up for this. It couldn’t have been his first winner’s room, but in the playoffs, everything was different. “Nah,” he said after a beat. He tugged on his hair again. “Want you on your knees, but not for that.”

He was on the scrawny side. White knee socks pulled up over his spandex and a Pens playoffs t-shirt layered over his under-armor hid nothing. He was all young muscle and sinew, just like Claude had been at his age. Taking a couple more steps into the room, he stood at the foot of the bed and stripped out of his shirts. Claude didn’t have to look up too far, but he gave the kid his due. 

He lifted his chin and said, “You want it, you have to take it.”

Guentzel grinned like he was glad to hear it. “Been takin’ you all night, so why stop now, right?”

Claude snorted a reflexive laugh and stood up to shrug out of his shirt, looking the kid right in the eye as they came even. If he was any judge, Guentzel looked relieved to see they were still the same height without skates on. He put his hand in the middle of Claude’s chest, palm damp with sweat, and shoved. 

Claude didn’t move a muscle. “You're gonna have to put me on my knees.”

The kid’s mouth twisted a moment before he put his shoulder to Claude’s ribs and attempted a clumsy slew-foot, tripping him backward onto the bed. Landing with a grunt, Claude grabbed for the body on top of him, shoving back and looking for leverage to flip them over. It was what they’d been aiming toward all night, really. Sid at the dot with Couts, Claude to the left with this punk for company, yapping his ear off. They deserved each other.

The tussle got dirty when the kid wedged his thigh between Claude’s and pressed just hard enough on his balls to freeze him, his breath hot and quick on Claude’s throat. He was hard against Claude’s leg, hips stuttering by reflex. 

Guentzel went in for the kiss, but Claude turned just enough that it landed in the bristle of his beard. The kid didn’t try it again. “I’m gonna fuck you,” he said against Claude’s jaw. “On your knees, with your face in this pillow.” His thigh pressed tighter against his balls, and Claude hissed in a careful breath. “You’re gonna feel me all the way to the golf course.”

Claude dug his fingers into the kid’s waist hard enough to bruise, hard enough that Guentzel hissed and squirmed in reply. “I can leave some marks on you, too, for Washington, so watch it.”

The kid grabbed Claude’s wrist to pry his hand off, and Claude toppled him, rolling him under. He grinned at the kid’s snarl. He’d have to give Guentzel what he wanted in the end. Spread his knees and bury his face, but he didn’t have to go down easy.

*

They grappled on that bed until Claude’s knees and elbows were rubbed raw from the sheet, and the kid’s face was red with effort and beard-burn. Claude kissed him on his own terms, biting his lips until they were swollen and deeply pink, biting his shoulders and his neck until they were dotted with bruises and the kid made rough sounds of exhausted pain at every pinch. The bedside lamp was on the floor, and at some point, one of them had kicked over a nearby chair.

They’d stripped each other naked, and Claude didn’t quit until the kid’s weight at his back—his chest heaving and his dick soft and vulnerable against Claude’s ass—felt like that heavy closeness before sleep. The kid’s hand on Claude’s stomach was gentle with how tired he was. 

Claude exhaled and rolled fully onto his front, drawing Guentzel with him to lie heavy and warm along his back. They lay there for several moments, just breathing into the weight resistance of each other, until unsteady fingers, wet with spit, pressed between his cheeks and against his hole. 

“Let me,” the kid said, voice thick. “Please—fuck.”

“Get the stuff,” Claude grunted into the pillow, pulling his arms beneath his chest to press up to all fours finally. 

The kid’s weight disappeared briefly as he knelt to reach into the cabinet beside the bed. When he came back, his fingers were wetter and they pushed into him with little finesse. The kid’s sweaty forehead dipped against Claude’s back as he was stretched open. 

“I’m fucking ready,” Claude mumbled into the pillow. “Do it.” 

“I just need a minute,” the kid said, and from the husky vibration of his breathing, Claude pictured him jerking himself hard again so he could roll on the condom.

At the eventual snap of latex, Claude clenched his fingers against the sheet and went boneless. Guentzel slid into him on a rough groan, his sticky fingers tight on Claude’s hips. But he was so tired from getting them here—crashing from the adrenalin of the game, from winning and advancing and four goals and Claude fighting him off for fuck knows how long—he could only seem to lay himself along Claude’s back again, arms loose around Claude’s middle, his cheek pressed to Claude’s shoulder.

“Come on, fuck me,” Claude said with a smirk.

“I am,” Guentzel answered, possibly drooling a little. But he picked up the pace slightly, and it was fucking perfect. Spreading his knees a little wider, Claude let his head hang between his shoulders and bit tiredly at the tender skin of his own underarm. He surrendered to the end of his season and let go of his disappointment. At least within the four walls of the winner’s room. The kid petted his sides and kissed the back of his neck and fucked him with short, deep strokes of his hips. He wasn’t that thick or that long, but neither was the rest of him, and Claude thought he was perfectly proportioned for his. 

Getting a hand on himself, Claude went down onto one elbow and buried his face in the crook of his arm. The slow build of pressure and pleasure felt all the more deliberate for the kid’s modest size—like he was reaching inside Claude and touching right where he needed instead of overwhelming him. 

His orgasm surprised him, rising and spilling out at just the right curl of the kid’s hips. He let out a sharp sound that was gentled as the kid gasped and went still. “Oh, fuck,” Guentzel said, voice a little high and desperate as he pulsed into him. Claude rocked his hips back, and got a sharp sound out of the kid, too. 

They collapsed together, and Guentzel held on, nuzzling against the back of Claude’s neck and making quiet, satisfied noises low in his throat. He touched Claude’s sides again, not grasping but easy now—

—and more intimate than Claude could handle from a stranger, in his own building at the end of his season. He allowed it for another few moments, feeling the kid’s heartbeat and breathing slow, but he pulled away as Guentzel started to twitch with oncoming sleep. 

“We can’t stay here, man,” he said. 

“We don’t fly out until tomorrow,” Guentzel answered. 

Claude snorted. “We’re not staying here. You were good, but nobody’s that good.” He felt the kid smile against the back of his neck and deeply regretted his praise. 

“I was good?”

“Gotta work on your staying power, but sure. You were good.”

“Hey, you totally blew first. I could’ve gone longer, but you made me come.”

Embarrassing for them both, and very likely true. Claude shoved back with his elbow. “All right, let’s go, kid.” He rolled over onto his ass, wincing at the satisfying soreness and at the rush of cool air against the spunk drying on his stomach. 

“My name is Jake,” the kid said, sitting up with him. Claude resisted the urge to dig his fingers into all that hair, tangled and dull with sweat. For a moment, he missed his own. 

“I know it is. Kid.” 

Guentzel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, all right, blow me,” he said, obviously too well-fucked to come up with anything better. 

“That will have to wait for next time. Come on.” At the look of surprise and hope in the kid’s face, Claude hid a wince. Shit. “Come on, up,” he said again, shoving Guentzel—fine, _Jake_ —with his foot toward the edge of the bed.

They cleaned up at the sink in silence, Jake shooting him quick, hooded looks like he wouldn’t notice. Fucking kids, man. It was almost too easy—easy to get off and easy to get hurt. 

When they were done and back in their gross game clothes, Claude put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. He leaned in and Jake eagerly met him in the middle, though Claude kept the kiss slow and sweet. “Hey, congrats,” he said. “Take Washington next round and do it all again, yeah?”

The kid grinned and knocked wood before answering. “Yeah, all right. Thanks.”

*

Claude had just stripped the bed, set the room to rights, and was about to hit the showers, Jake already gone, when a quiet knock on the doorframe startled him. Looking up, he found Sid hovering there in the hallway, hesitant to come in. The way he glanced over his shoulder, he knew he was breaking the rules. Theirs and their clubs’.

“Hey,” he started. “I know we said…and you and Guentz just.” He shrugged and offered a crooked smile. “But I wanted to see you.” 

“Living dangerously, Sid.” Claude perched on the edge of the naked mattress and pulled his socks back on to hide a surge of relief that left his fingers buzzing. Jesus fuck, was he glad Sid hadn’t been the one with the dick-trick tonight. There’d been a part of him, when it was all happening and the writing was on the wall, that had desperately wanted Sid to get game-winner. He’d wanted to rip it all apart, and if this thing they were trying was a casualty, so be it.

It would have been. He knew himself well enough, and so did Sid by the look of him. 

“You didn’t…” Sid gave him a searching look. “You wouldn’t have—”

Claude huffed, aiming for casual. “He’s got plenty of bruises to brag about, but that’s all. Come on, give me some credit.”

“I do,” Sid acknowledged. “But playoffs are different. We tore the shit out of each other.”

Spreading his hands on his knees, Claude rubbed his palms and nodded. “I remember.” During playoffs, game-winner came at the end of the series, after elimination. It wasn’t just about dominance for the winner and humiliation for the loser. It was vengeance and catharsis for both sides. It was a fucking wildfire. 

At least it had been for he and Sid. Barely older than Guentzel and so deep into the rivalry they could only be monsters to each other. Claude had picked Crosby for the winner’s room with every intention of continuing their line-brawl of a series. He could have Sid exactly where he wanted him—exactly where he’d wanted him all series. And before that.

But the sex was embarrassing. His wrists were fucked from Crosby’s bullshit faceoffs. The only thing he came out of that room with was a raging Sidney Crosby obsession. It went along with the raging infection he got from the gouges Sid dug into his skin. 

The whole episode and the ones that followed over the next couple years might have actually driven him crazy if it weren’t for Worlds in Prague.

Sid was looking around the winner’s room, doubtless remembering the ugliness of those years. Different guys got game-winner and asked different guys to the winner's room, of course, but he and Sid had found their way here a few times. Though they’d never met again in the playoffs until now.

“You know you’re not allowed in here,” Claude said eventually. “The series is over. We’re done.”

“Are my feet over the line?” Sid asked, gesturing down at his socked toes. They were not. But when he looked up, Sid wasn’t smiling. “Do you want me to go? I get it if you do.”

Shaking his head, Claude pressed to his feet. He crossed to the door and stuck his head into the hall, glanced both ways, and seeing they had the area to themselves, pulled Sid in with him. The bed was too well used. He didn’t want to go back to the bed, so with the door shut behind them, he slid to the floor and leaned back against it. Sid sat with him, and after a moment of silence, Claude reached for his hand and set it where their propped-up knees leaned together.

“Are you okay?” Sid finally asked. 

Claude nodded. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah, he is. I think you have a new fan.”

“Great,” Claude said with a huff.

“That’s how it should be,” Sid answered. _We were way more fucked up than we needed to be_ , Claude heard. _Easy for you to say,_ he thought.

“Can you believe it’s been six years?” Sid asked into the silence.

“Crazy, yeah.” 

But not half as crazy as Sid offering a truce and friendship three years ago at Worlds, as if Claude had had that luxury. A fucking blowjob a year after that at the World Cup when nothing at all was owed. And finally, an invitation during the Stadium Series last winter to spend the night in his bed in Pittsburgh. His real bed. No etiquette, no expectations, and no staff that needed to get in and sterilize everything before the next game. 

“Crazy,” Claude said again.

Sid nodded, then thunked his head back against the door. “Fuck. I hate Washington _so much_ , I almost wish you’d won this one.”

That jolted him. He turned to find Sid with his gaze fixed firmly on the ceiling. “What?”

“I mean, of course I don’t really wish you’d won. But I don’t want to do this. I just wanna play you again. Or anyone but Washington. Three playoffs in a row? It sucks.” He tipped his head along the wall just enough to look sidelong at Claude. “All those things I said about you guys six years ago—it’s like that, but worse.”

“How could it be worse than that?” Claude asked blankly. He remembered Sid almost in tears on camera and how thrilled he’d been to be the cause of them. He couldn’t imagine Sid losing control like that again.

“Easy,” Sid answered. “There’s no one on that team I want to fuck me if we lose. And whoever it is, they're gonna ask for me.”

He finally looked Claude in the eye, and Claude did not like what he saw there.

They were both captains; probably north of 80% of the sex they had during the season was in a winner’s room, though they never discussed the details. Perks and drawbacks of the game.

“I don’t know...” Sid began and frowned. “I don’t know if we have it this year. And I don’t know if I can get through one of these—” He tipped his chin up at the room. “—in Washington.”

Claude could hardly breathe. Part of his brain was still stuck on this— _“There’s no one on that team I want to fuck me if we lose”_ —and what that meant about six years ago. 

The rest of him was planning a homicide. 

He must have looked about as nuts as he felt, because Sid leaned away and tried to untangle their fingers. “Sorry. I have no right to say any of this shit here. Especially here. I’m sorry.”

Claude reached across him with his free hand to cup his jaw, his shitty beard just barely started. They didn’t kiss, but Claude pressed his brow to Sid’s, and Sid grabbed back hard enough to make Guentzel’s new bruises ache. They'd never really hugged before, outside of a fight, and it showed. 

Claude couldn’t prevent a single thing in the next round or any of the rest of playoffs. But as much as it occupied them, they all had lives outside these walls, and Claude was suddenly very glad to enter his right now, here. The series was over; the Flyers and Penguins were done. 

“I can be there after,” he said. “However it goes, I could…”

“You could come to my house now,” Sid said, so quickly it was almost like he'd been waiting for Claude to offer. “Stay with me for a few weeks.” This close, his eyes were blurry when he looked up. “Not for this.” He pulled back and gestured at the room—at the bundle of sheets four feet to their right and the red fingermarks on Claude’s arms. “Not to work through my shit. Just to be together. You know?” He said it like he wasn’t sure either of them actually knew how to do that.

“I—don’t know.” But he could picture it clearly—the silence of Sid’s house while the team was away, Claude rattling around by himself, yelling at the TV during games. The rumble of the garage opener letting him know Sid was home. The bruises and marks of the long season fading from his skin while Sid came home with new ones for Claude to press on and make his. 

_He_ would be the end and the beginning of Sid’s day, no matter what happened during it.

“It might be a terrible idea,” Sid hedged. “You probably just wanna go home now, right?”

He shrugged, then shook his head, mind made up. “No, if I go to Pittsburgh, I don’t have to murder anyone in DC for touching you.”

Sid blinked, and his smile was slow as it spread across his mouth. “You’re good with sloppy seconds, then.”

Claude huffed. “I’m feeling pretty sloppy right now, so...”

Sid looked him over, eyes hungry. It wasn’t far off from their early days, a possessive edge sharpening his expression, like teeth pressed against skin. “Guentz is pretty taken with you, you know,” he said.

Claude looked down at their hands where they still rested on his knee. “Tell him he missed that boat six years ago.” 

The violence of their first years had left Claude feeling scraped out and overwhelmed. Of anyone in the league, only Sid could fill him up and empty him out like that. Make him question everything he'd ever accomploshed and end up prouder and angrier by the next time they met. He might have somebody else’s fingerprints all over him tonight, but Sid was stamped on his insides.

At the sound of voices in the hall, Sid jolted. “I’ve gotta go,” he said quickly. “I wanted to—” He gave Claude an intense look. The kind that wished for things they couldn’t have right now.

“I’ll meet you after cleanout,” Claude said, pushing against the door to lever himself up. 

Sid followed, tugging him around so he boxed himself in with Claude’s body. They finally kissed, Claude with one hand on the doorknob. Sid nodded and murmured, "Yeah," without breaking the kiss.

A sharp knock at the door shocked a gasp out of him, and Claude felt it like Sid had stolen the breath right out of his lungs. “On the count of three?” Sid asked, a glint in his eye.

“Sure, babe,” Claude answered. But he opened the door like he had nothing at all to hide, and they exited the winner’s room like professionals.


End file.
